Ironman Wisconsin 2005

Scatter brained thoughts
I finished. It wasn’t as fast and definately not as pretty as I had hoped, but I finished, and was completely satisfied with the result.

Placing: 266 OA / 38 AG
Times:
Swim : 51:53
T1: 6:23
Bike: 5:52:13
T2: 3:55
Run: 5:12:01
Total: 12:06:24
Looking back on the race I know I made some mistakes, the biggest of which was allowing myself to fall behind on hydration and/or electrolyte consumption on the bike. I was probably overgeared for the course, but I tried riding with different gearing this year, and I just didn’t like the “feel” of it.

Anyways:
The swim:
I swam with a full wetsuit and I felt comfortable the entire race, never to warm.

I started the swim to the front and inside. This was the first time in a swim where I felt the power of drafting. I didn’t believe there was any benefit to doing it, until today.

I cruised through the first lap just following people around. Every once in a while, I got really frustrated by “those retarded gold caps” who wouldn’t let me get by them.

As we got into the second lap, I found a guy that was swimming a pace that felt comfortable for me, so I just tucked in behind him and let him tow me around (turns out he was somebody I know!) As we came around turn number 3 on lap to, a boat or something must have gone by because there were some terrible waves, it was worse then swimming into shore when the tide is going out.
About half way through the back straight away of the second loop my right calf started twinging with a little cramping. I just flexed my foot a few times and worked it out by kicking a little more.

I pulled into shore about a minute ahead of my goal pace, and in 12th place overall. I was really happy with it, and I felt like I had not expended to much energy.

Bike:
I got through T1, and decided that I would carry my bike shoes with me to my bike, and put them on there. I hope on and rolled down the helix, and out for a bike ride.

I tried and tried to ride nice and slow and relaxed, and it definately felt that way, but for the life of me I couldn’t get my HR down. After fighting with it for the first 15-16 miles I decided to just do my best to control it.
I had no issues on the first loop, I had a couple instances of people passing me, and then slowing down right after doing so, forcing me to either slow down as well, or expend extra energy to pull in front of them.
The second loop started to get hard, I had some quad cramping on each of the 3 major climbs, that I attribute to not consuming enough fluids and electrolytes.

I made it back to town, and up the helix (an easy climb for a change!). I got off the bike, tired, but I felt OK. I was a bit worried because I hadn’t peed yet, but I was hopeful that carrying a fuel belt on the run would help me get caught up hydration wise.

Run:
I left the transition with the race clock showing 6:5X as I left the transition area, down from my goal time, but I was pleased overall. I decided to run the first two miles or so and come up with a goal time then. Mile 1 was in the neighborhood of 8:30 with my HR finally in the right range. Mile 2 was a little faster, somewhere in here I finally had to use the porta potty; I’m not sure where, but it was a relief to go pee.

i kept trucking a long, thinking my chances to run 3:45 to 3:50 were pretty good. My hydration caught up with me around mile 5 (just after observatory hill), and I started having really bad cramps in both calves. A couple of times, the cramping imbolized me. This shifted me into shuffling 20 or 30 strides, stop and stretch and walk them out for the next 15 miles.

At mile 20 I found myself able to start moving OK again, and at mile 22 I was able to run the remainder of the race (except aid stations).

That’s how the race went, I was happy, the run sucked, but I had a great, satisfiying race.